“With heart and hand I pledge you while I load my gun again, you will never be forgotten or the enemy forgiven, my good comrade.” ~ A.S.L.
“If my comrade doubts I laugh confidently If my comrade sleeps I keep the watch for him If my comrade falls I fight on for the both of us Because to every warrior the gods have given a comrade.” ~ Song Of The Comrade, Blood Axis
“And I held the breath inside my lungs for days
And I saw myself as one of many waves
And when I knew I’d become the ocean’s slave
I just stayed.” ~ Waves by the Bahamas
I’m sitting here watching scenes of IRMA basically destroy my beloved SouthLand. June 1st – December 1st is that time of the year on what I call The Hurricane Train. It is the tradeoff. With beauty there is always underlying horror. Steven and I used to talk all the time about the love of the ocean and this balance. It is not something that is contrived. Mother Ocean gives and takes as she sees fit.
On this day the ocean took my comrade.
Freediving.
I finally got around to becoming bonafide certified in the art of freediving. Something I promised I would do in discussions with him.
Everytime I see a huge set, a wisp of salt spray, or glint of light from the bottom of the ocean I think of his laugh.
“With heart and hand I pledge you while I load my gun again, you will never be forgotten or the enemy forgiven, my good comrade.” ~ A.S.L.
“If my comrade doubts I laugh confidently If my comrade sleeps I keep the watch for him If my comrade falls I fight on for the both of us Because to every warrior the gods have given a comrade.” ~ Song Of The Comrade, Blood Axis
Very late one night I was looking into some music and ran across a song entitled: “Waves” by the Bahamas. For some reason I thought of my comrade as soon as I heard this:
“And I held the breath inside my lungs for days
And I saw myself as one of many waves
And when I knew I’d become the ocean’s slave
I just stayed.”
I know that Sven died doing what he loved. Free-diving. I remember when he told me he wanted a boat to sail around the world. I said, “Well let us see if we can accelerate things so you can get down to doing just that and get out of here.”
About three years ago I was talking to someone during an initial interview who in many ways reminded me of the Sven – even only about a half hour on the phone. After about two hours talking (this guy wasn’t looking for a job and already had more than 20 job offers at scale.) I asked this person what he really wanted. Without hesitation he said “A boat to sail around the world”. In fact it turned out to be the same type the Sven wanted and earned. I grew deathly silent. He asked what was wrong and did he screw the “interview” up. I said no in fact quite the opposite and I asked if he had some time and I would tell him a story. Synchronistic events in action. There are no coincidences in life.
Due to all of our interests back in 1998 I promised Sven if anything ever happened to him I would watch over his lovely wife and two amazing sons who are now young men practicing in the footsteps of their old man. I can unequivocally say he would be very proud of both of them.
Last year I thought for some reason it was time to quit thinking about “all of this.” whatever thisis. Remembering those who lived loud and indulged in the greatest indulgence – life. The I realized that is not something to quit remembering.
To switch gears for something that will forever be recorded in the annals of hatred for certain technologies – even though he was one of the best programmers of all time. As you watch: you know you have always wanted to do that and he did it with a brand new system:
After that give this a listen. One breath. Take a deep breath today and hopefully go underwater and remember Sven. He would appreciate it.
I was recently reminded of the importance of shipping code. In the same night I watched the latest episode in the series Silicon Valley I also watched an episode of Shark Tank. In the tank Chris Sacca (Uber, Twitter etc) said “Ideas Are Cheap Execution is Everything.” Looking at the field and thinking about the myriad of things to plant is akin to all of the ideas that people generate and think hey that is easy. Just hit the easy button. Well there is a stratification that occurs in the industry. There are three tiers: (1) thinking or what I call though-ting – as in we have thought about that some time ago. (2) Executing on the idea with shipping code (3) and the ultimate example – shipping code that goes to production and does not fail that amazes the end user whether enterprise or consumer.
Most sit there and look at the field and think “golly jee I have an idea! I really have an idea!” Great. Good for you. So do millions of other people. However for those that can take an idea and execute it to shipping code from an idea that many if not most think is impossible and have it run day in and day out this is the stuff that ideas2bank are built upon. For those that have seen the latest episode I will just leave this here and for the few that truly and viscerally have experienced this at a worldwide level – I personally thank you. (Oh yea and that is a mean loop by San Holo – word on the lazy web says he is gonna drop the full version soon.) 5,4,3,2,1 – Ship It!
“With heart and hand I pledge you while I load my gun again, you will never be forgotten or the enemy forgiven, my good comrade.”
~ A.S.L.
As I just told the wife of Steven Swenson – this evening – I did not have the intention to write anything today. As I lifted weights this morning hoping they would lie to me concerning the poundage and watching the scenes of 9.11 – I remember 10 years ago – today – getting quite a different phone call four years after said terrorist tragedy based on some theistic apparition. I hadn’t intended to write anything however many times intent can vacillate. This vacillation was exacerbated by inquiry from a person who was wondering how a team came together eating steaks – so I answered him. Which in turn led him to comment “You should write a book.” Yes well 10 years ago it was to be called “From The Valley To The Sea.”
Its been a decade. Its time for some closure. However one last little tidbit.
Sven: “Hey man i’m gonna cast off, you wanna take it down from San Juan to San Fran?”
Me: “Nah i gotta hit the road get on the tin bird.”
Sven:” So I’m gonna tell them I am leaving.”
Me: “Nah man dont do that just keep checking in the code via the wireless McGiver Rig”
(Note: Way pre ubiquitous wi-fi days)
Sven: “Think it will work?”
Me: “Sure I’ll run interference.”
In the book I’ll come clean on how I accomplished this…
This lasted 3 months before they found out…
So I was told its time to start writing. One last thing before i sign off. Roma, Leif and Gage – Steven would be very proud of all of you.
“With heart and hand I pledge you while I load my gun again, you will never be forgotten or the enemy forgiven, my good comrade.”
~ A.S.L.
“Be Good and You Will Be Lonesome.” ~ Caption for the author’s photograph on shipboard via Following The Equator.
I sit looking at the translucent contrails and the cumulonimbus clouds creating rainbows above the herd in mid September 2014. I do not see any flags on the masses of metal as they go about their so called living. Patriotism is also a commercial business nowadays. I too was in the ocean 9 years ago on this day – doing what I love – riding hurricane swells. There are those on this day who fell at the hands of people who believe in a “better god”. That being said Hail to John Hoekman who made it out of the north tower from the 87 floor after saving several.
True camaraderie is becoming a lost entity. I still have what I term “my garbage bag crew” – those few men of whom without question I could call to bring “garbage bags” to clean up a mess (which also usually involve towels and other methods of disinfecting) yet those are tales of for another time or space.
One day Sven and I were shooting some pool. Gentlemen’s bet if memory serves correct. We were discussing “Following The Equator.” by Mark Twain. He said my favorite part of the book is the first page – “Be good and you will be lonesome.” We ended up talking for a couple of hours about what it truly means to be a “good man”. Most often than not a “being a good man” is not necessarily being “good” as it pertains to the so called social norms of society. Jimmy Buffet wrote a song entitled “That is what living is to Me.” Whilst we were discussing the book – out of suspicious coincidence said song came up on the playlist set to random play. He started screaming THIS – THIS IS WHAT IT IS ALL ABOUT! WHY CANT ANYONE SEE IT? I said some are not meant to and we are usually dragged down by this stratification. I said man some just arent, that is all it is – born not made.”
Jimmy Buffet starts off the song by discussing he wrote the song based on the first page of the book.
“Book good and you will be lonesome.
Be Lonesome and you will be free,
Live a lie and you will to regret it.
Thats what living is to me.” ~ J.B.
Your scars imprison and create you. Dead pirates tell no tales. One less garbage bag in the collection.
On this day we lost a husband, father, waterman and I lost one of my tribe and comrades Steven Swenson.
“With heart and hand I pledge you while I load my gun again, you will never be forgotten or the enemy forgiven, my good comrade.”
~ A.S.L.
Well time contracts when you are taking care of business. Another year has passed. Most are acting like they are patriotic talking about the terrorist activity in the United States of America. My hat tip to John Hoekman who ran down 87 flights of stairs in the North Tower after trying to save several persons. An individual and comrade who is a cut above most. That is all I have to say on that matter. Hoekmaster Hails!
For those that know you know what I write about every year on this date since 2005. Its been 8 years. For those that are not aware you can and should refer to this link: HAIL THE SVEN.
As a society we are loosing the concept of the true Tribal Nature of Man. On this day we lost a husband, father, waterman and I lost one of my tribe and comrades Steven Swenson.
Several who have read my blog contact me concerning reference materials and textbooks that I would recommend. I must admit that I am a biblio-maniac. I am unable to go into a book store especially a used bookstore and walk out empty handed. Even in this day and age of iPads I still love the visceral aspects of the printed form. Call me a luddite. That said I do have have somewhat of an interesting per-view on the world of books.
For the software world the people that are doing the creating are not writing books per se. Thus if your reading books your not necessarily creating anything novel. Let me be more specific. Many use books to find an answer. Many use books as a catalyst or reference. I fall into the latter. There are no “give me a shipping product” books – no “what is the answer?” – for some of the stuff that we create. Yes there are several ‘cookbooks’ and recipes for say learning a language or a new framework but there are no books that will provide answers to production level novel solutions. As a very succinct example I was having a discussion in NYC with a very respected Executive Engineering Director and we both decided that there were no books that dealt specifically with hiring great talent in the tech world. Why? Because most are not going to tell you exactly what it really takes to hire great people and to build great teams. That said few are going to explain how they came up with great coding feats – they will explain it after the fact for reference see Coders At Work.
So without further “waxin all philosphical‘” here is a laundry list of books that I have found useful over the years. I will try and categorize them according to subject matter. Its by no means comprehensive. I will also utilize this same list format in the future. I would love to hear feedback or your thoughts – please share your list, if you are so inclined – after the fact.
Machine Learning, Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery
This book is phenomenal and is at the very for front of issues we are all trying to solve in the areas of large scale learning systems. The book contains everything from parallelization of Support Vector Machines to details of how one designs hardware architectures for the next round of highly scalable machine learning algorithms. Note this is not an introductory text. Also the book takes a very interesting view in that it is written mainly by the best in the field.
This is a seminal text in the areas of Machine Learning. There is enough verbiage if your not a mathematician and enough algorithmic pseudo code to follow the development of the explanations. I find myself going back to this book over and over. Covers most everything from Bayes to Boosting. It also has updated chapters on his web page. I also like this writing style.
Some purest might not like this book but I think it is a great read because it discusses why we actually need to consider a paying customer. The book goes deep enough in the explanations and marries them to great scenarios for business models. It also discusses in a ‘mind map manner’ how to design systems and algorithms. The text also has a great bibliography.
This is a great book that gets your toes in the water for differing aspects of “DataScience”. Basically statistics and machine learning for data. The book has examples for simple crawlers, Bayes Theorem, Adaptive Neural Networks, Similarity Functions, Distance Metrics, and workhorse algorithms such as Support Vector Machines and Non-Negative Matrix Factorization. Written in a pragmatic fashion. Code in Python is included on the author’s website.
Seminal book on the subject. Spanning is the word I think of when reading this tome. The book covers the usual suspects but goes on to a ‘meta-level’ to discuss varied fields of Logic, Qualitative Physics, Spatial Reasoning, Psychological foundations and fundamental mathematics. The appendix and bibliography are worth the price of entry (expensive) for this oracle.
I am a proponent of the ‘get it and go’ format. This lives up to the title. It is a good introductory text. It starts off with a good introduction to Genetic Algorithms, not to be confused with Evolutionary Computing and proceeds to Learning systems and deeper issues as Non-Stationary classification systems, multi-variate parameter selection as well as a chapter on applications.
This book takes a novel approach that have an online presence and a hard text reference. Stephen Marsland updates the code and book online and provides access much like the O’Reilly series. Of particular interest is the format for review of such areas as probability, eigenvaules and fundamental algorithms. The book also provides code examples mainly in the areas of Python. This book takes exactly that approach, with each topic being presented both mathematically and in Python code using the Numpy and Scipy libraries. As most know SciPy and Numpy resemble Matlab and is sufficiently high level that the book code
examples read like pseudocode. SciKits would also be a good addition.
With the same eye towards ‘get in and get done’ Seagram wrote this because there was no middle ground for Semantics or if there were such a text it was voluminous. Great introductory text on Semantics with succinct code examples in Python. The text emphasizes that you are not constrained to using data from only one database or server, but when the data is organized and stored in a standardized semantic format such as RDF, it may be made available for reading by anyone (if desired) without any risk of it being overwritten by using a query language like SPARQL instead of the better known SQL. Once again complete code available via the InterWebz.
This book is a larger text that spans the areas of Semantics: FOAF, Reasoners, SPARQL, Linked Data, Microformats without getting too far in the weeds with theoretic gymnastics (read axiomatic proofs etc). Written in mainly in JAVA. The discussion of Semantics from a ‘non ivory tower’ standpoint is worth the purchase. Then again it has been said in order to program semantics one has to believe semantics exist.
People often confuse Semantics with Natural Language Processing. While the two are close cousins you can do one without the other and visa versa. Historically NLTKas it is now known in the industry is becoming the “goto” Python Library for performing textual gymnastics. This book is a wonderful introduction to Python, Text Analytics and analysis of grammer. For example entity extraction which historically is extremely difficult is:
This is at a much lower level and assumes that you need to do perform basic NLP and is more text analytics based than extracting meaning, linguistic and grammatical behaviors. One novel aspect to this book is the addition of creation of a corpora reader via MongoDb. The book even addresses nuances like FileLocking during corpora edits. It uses PyMongo as the front end interface with Python examples. The examples go on the look at various aspects of NLTK and NoSQL architectures.
At the moment this is one of the tomes that I am immersed within. The book has a good introduction on Graph Theory but then quickly heads into territory such as calculations of Social Capital with emphasis on Closure within Networks. The text also does a grand job of tying (pun intended) Graph Theory and Game Theoretic applications with emphasis on arbitrage environments. The chapter on diffusion in networks is worth the price of purchase. For anyone performing work in the area of Social Networks this text is a must.
This book is a great mix of statistics, linear algebra and game theory as applied to social networks. The economic emphasis is particularly cogent. The detail and depth is world class. The analysis of Stochastic and Random graph models is of particular interest for anyone dealing with adoption models in network environments. Further the mathematical analysis of imitation in social networks is especially enjoyable. This is also one of the few text that I have seen that tie together Fat Tail, Long Tail and Poisson Distribution analysis.
This is an older text published in 1979. Funny how those “maths” do not change much – eh? I have owned this book since I have been involved with creating software systems. The book while not “out of print” is commanding extremely large sums of money. The objective as stated in the preface is: “to help one develop the ability to analyze real dynamic phenomena and dynamic systems.” Seems very appropriate in this day and age of online behavior. The book starts off with a review of differential equations, linear algebra and state space equations. Then text then goes on to address both mechanical and electrical constructs with applications with tools such as markov models and control systems with z-transform theory. You read this book and honestly you realize not much as changed with the InterWebz.
Years ago when I was working on my Phd in Applied Science we had several levels of Numerical Analysis. I love the aspects of Lagrange Polynomials, L2 Norms, Splines and the like. This book covers them all and has a really cool glossary and index of defined terms for that moment when you literally forgot what a term means because your cross eyed.
This is/was a text for a class at c on – Probability Random Variables and Stochastic Processes. The book is written by Athanasios Papoulis who is a legend in signal processing. I will tell you this is not for the faint of heart and neither was the class. Now more than ever it is an important part of anyone doing data science.
This is a straight ahead approach to Linear Algebra. Written in a straight ahead fashion addressing fundamentals of matrix theory like simultaneous equations, determinants and eigenvalue analysis. I probably have a high affinity for this book because it is a first edition published in 1965.
Colloquially known as TAOCP, I am not going to say much about these tomes except you should at a minimum know what they are and have in them. Not for the faint of heart if you just want to do some PHP or ruby on rails. Having had the experience to take a class from Professor Knuth with variations of these via class notes being the backdrop, I cannot say enough about the text. For the true software engineer a must for the arsenal.
IMHO this is a great book for the thought processes that lead to creating production products. It was a seminal work in the area before all of the Agile books hit the market. While I myself am not a big proponent of ‘software process’ this book gets you in the modus operandi of how to think not just code.
I was having discussion the other day with some I respect in the audio, semantics and data science field and we noted that long before you could spin up a virtual machine in the proverbial cloud there was a field called real time signal processing – where you didnt have a database. All the processing of streams were in real time – in memory. Funny how the vissistudes of cyclialty come back to haunt you think Big Data. I highly recommend this text. Great examples of frequency and array based processing. When everyone was teaching time domain behavior Professor Lindquist was teaching the law of dual domains and easier math. It also covers various kernel transforms never covered in other text before the term “wavelet” came in to vogue.
So there is a first cut in a multi volume blog that I will continue. I trust this was helpful. If you find any of these text useful feel free to contact me with what you are working on or considering. Also if there are recommendations that you find particularly informative as far as a certain text goes drop me a line.
Several who have read my blog contact me concerning reference materials and textbooks that I would recommend. I must admit that I am a biblio-maniac. I am unable to go into a book store especially a used bookstore and walk out empty handed. Even in this day and age of iPads I still love the visceral aspects of the printed form. Call me a luddite. That said I do have have somewhat of an interesting per-view on the world of books.
For the software world the people that are doing the creating are not writing books per se. Thus if your reading books your not necessarily creating anything novel. Let me be more specific. Many use books to find an answer. Many use books as a catalyst or reference. I fall into the latter. There are no “give me a shipping product” books – no “what is the answer?” – for some of the stuff that we create. Yes there are several ‘cookbooks’ and recipes for say learning a language or a new framework but there are no books that will provide answers to production level novel solutions. As a very succinct example I was having a discussion in NYC with a very respected Executive Engineering Director and we both decided that there were no books that dealt specifically with hiring great talent in the tech world. Why? Because most are not going to tell you exactly what it really takes to hire great people and to build great teams. That said few are going to explain how they came up with great coding feats – they will explain it after the fact for reference see Coders At Work.
So without further “waxin all philosphical‘” here is a laundry list of books that I have found useful over the years. I will try and categorize them according to subject matter. Its by no means comprehensive. I will also utilize this same list format in the future. I would love to hear feedback or your thoughts – please share your list, if you are so inclined – after the fact.
Machine Learning, Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery
This book is phenomenal and is at the very for front of issues we are all trying to solve in the areas of large scale learning systems. The book contains everything from parallelization of Support Vector Machines to details of how one designs hardware architectures for the next round of highly scalable machine learning algorithms. Note this is not an introductory text. Also the book takes a very interesting view in that it is written mainly by the best in the field.
This is a seminal text in the areas of Machine Learning. There is enough verbiage if your not a mathematician and enough algorithmic pseudo code to follow the development of the explanations. I find myself going back to this book over and over. Covers most everything from Bayes to Boosting. It also has updated chapters on his web page. I also like this writing style.
Some purest might not like this book but I think it is a great read because it discusses why we actually need to consider a paying customer. The book goes deep enough in the explanations and marries them to great scenarios for business models. It also discusses in a ‘mind map manner’ how to design systems and algorithms. The text also has a great bibliography.
This is a great book that gets your toes in the water for differing aspects of “DataScience”. Basically statistics and machine learning for data. The book has examples for simple crawlers, Bayes Theorem, Adaptive Neural Networks, Similarity Functions, Distance Metrics, and workhorse algorithms such as Support Vector Machines and Non-Negative Matrix Factorization. Written in a pragmatic fashion. Code in Python is included on the author’s website.
Seminal book on the subject. Spanning is the word I think of when reading this tome. The book covers the usual suspects but goes on to a ‘meta-level’ to discuss varied fields of Logic, Qualitative Physics, Spatial Reasoning, Psychological foundations and fundamental mathematics. The appendix and bibliography are worth the price of entry (expensive) for this oracle.
I am a proponent of the ‘get it and go’ format. This lives up to the title. It is a good introductory text. It starts off with a good introduction to Genetic Algorithms, not to be confused with Evolutionary Computing and proceeds to Learning systems and deeper issues as Non-Stationary classification systems, multi-variate parameter selection as well as a chapter on applications.
This book takes a novel approach that have an online presence and a hard text reference. Stephen Marsland updates the code and book online and provides access much like the O’Reilly series. Of particular interest is the format for review of such areas as probability, eigenvaules and fundamental algorithms. The book also provides code examples mainly in the areas of Python. This book takes exactly that approach, with each topic being presented both mathematically and in Python code using the Numpy and Scipy libraries. As most know SciPy and Numpy resemble Matlab and is sufficiently high level that the book code
examples read like pseudocode. SciKits would also be a good addition.
With the same eye towards ‘get in and get done’ Seagram wrote this because there was no middle ground for Semantics or if there were such a text it was voluminous. Great introductory text on Semantics with succinct code examples in Python. The text emphasizes that you are not constrained to using data from only one database or server, but when the data is organized and stored in a standardized semantic format such as RDF, it may be made available for reading by anyone (if desired) without any risk of it being overwritten by using a query language like SPARQL instead of the better known SQL. Once again complete code available via the InterWebz.
This book is a larger text that spans the areas of Semantics: FOAF, Reasoners, SPARQL, Linked Data, Microformats without getting too far in the weeds with theoretic gymnastics (read axiomatic proofs etc). Written in mainly in JAVA. The discussion of Semantics from a ‘non ivory tower’ standpoint is worth the purchase. Then again it has been said in order to program semantics one has to believe semantics exist.
People often confuse Semantics with Natural Language Processing. While the two are close cousins you can do one without the other and visa versa. Historically NLTKas it is now known in the industry is becoming the “goto” Python Library for performing textual gymnastics. This book is a wonderful introduction to Python, Text Analytics and analysis of grammer. For example entity extraction which historically is extremely difficult is:
This is at a much lower level and assumes that you need to do perform basic NLP and is more text analytics based than extracting meaning, linguistic and grammatical behaviors. One novel aspect to this book is the addition of creation of a corpora reader via MongoDb. The book even addresses nuances like FileLocking during corpora edits. It uses PyMongo as the front end interface with Python examples. The examples go on the look at various aspects of NLTK and NoSQL architectures.
At the moment this is one of the tomes that I am immersed within. The book has a good introduction on Graph Theory but then quickly heads into territory such as calculations of Social Capital with emphasis on Closure within Networks. The text also does a grand job of tying (pun intended) Graph Theory and Game Theoretic applications with emphasis on arbitrage environments. The chapter on diffusion in networks is worth the price of purchase. For anyone performing work in the area of Social Networks this text is a must.
This book is a great mix of statistics, linear algebra and game theory as applied to social networks. The economic emphasis is particularly cogent. The detail and depth is world class. The analysis of Stochastic and Random graph models is of particular interest for anyone dealing with adoption models in network environments. Further the mathematical analysis of imitation in social networks is especially enjoyable. This is also one of the few text that I have seen that tie together Fat Tail, Long Tail and Poisson Distribution analysis.
This is an older text published in 1979. Funny how those “maths” do not change much – eh? I have owned this book since I have been involved with creating software systems. The book while not “out of print” is commanding extremely large sums of money. The objective as stated in the preface is: “to help one develop the ability to analyze real dynamic phenomena and dynamic systems.” Seems very appropriate in this day and age of online behavior. The book starts off with a review of differential equations, linear algebra and state space equations. Then text then goes on to address both mechanical and electrical constructs with applications with tools such as markov models and control systems with z-transform theory. You read this book and honestly you realize not much as changed with the InterWebz.
Years ago when I was working on my Phd in Applied Science we had several levels of Numerical Analysis. I love the aspects of Lagrange Polynomials, L2 Norms, Splines and the like. This book covers them all and has a really cool glossary and index of defined terms for that moment when you literally forgot what a term means because your cross eyed.
This is/was a text for a class at c on – Probability Random Variables and Stochastic Processes. The book is written by Athanasios Papoulis who is a legend in signal processing. I will tell you this is not for the faint of heart and neither was the class. Now more than ever it is an important part of anyone doing data science.
This is a straight ahead approach to Linear Algebra. Written in a straight ahead fashion addressing fundamentals of matrix theory like simultaneous equations, determinants and eigenvalue analysis. I probably have a high affinity for this book because it is a first edition published in 1965.
Colloquially known as TAOCP, I am not going to say much about these tomes except you should at a minimum know what they are and have in them. Not for the faint of heart if you just want to do some PHP or ruby on rails. Having had the experience to take a class from Professor Knuth with variations of these via class notes being the backdrop, I cannot say enough about the text. For the true software engineer a must for the arsenal.
IMHO this is a great book for the thought processes that lead to creating production products. It was a seminal work in the area before all of the Agile books hit the market. While I myself am not a big proponent of ‘software process’ this book gets you in the modus operandi of how to think not just code.
I was having discussion the other day with some I respect in the audio, semantics and data science field and we noted that long before you could spin up a virtual machine in the proverbial cloud there was a field called real time signal processing – where you didnt have a database. All the processing of streams were in real time – in memory. Funny how the vissistudes of cyclialty come back to haunt you think Big Data. I highly recommend this text. Great examples of frequency and array based processing. When everyone was teaching time domain behavior Professor Lindquist was teaching the law of dual domains and easier math. It also covers various kernel transforms never covered in other text before the term “wavelet” came in to vogue.
So there is a first cut in a multi volume blog that I will continue. I trust this was helpful. If you find any of these text useful feel free to contact me with what you are working on or considering. Also if there are recommendations that you find particularly informative as far as a certain text goes drop me a line.
“With heart and hand I pledge you while I load my gun again, you will never be forgotten or the enemy forgiven, my good comrade.”
~ A.S.L.
As is usual this time of year most think of heading back to school, the coming of autumn and even some are contemplating the winter holidays. I am usually stuck betwixt the mental gymnastics of the proverbial Indian Summer and the Weather Channel fervently watching for the next storm barreling up the Carribean Corridor. True waterman know that one should never take your eye off the ocean or take your gaze off the skyline. The relationship a waterman has with the ocean is an extremely complicated Mars/Venus – Love/Hate – Yin/Yang existence especially for those that would love to see The Kracken, Leviathan or Neptune emerge from the deep. Secretly I believe we are ‘Oceanic misogynist’ as most watermen look at the ocean as a lady and actually dislike her yet at the same time are drawn to Her love and terror.
Yet as much as I truly love this time of the year when most start tweeting – “We will never forget!” – in honor of the 9/11 terrorist attacks my mind wanders to few days before 9/11 and the last time I talked to the waterman and my comrade: Steven Swenson (aka Sven).
Some of you know that I write this dedication every year. It is neither cathartic nor is it pining in squalid sorrow for my lost commrade. I cannot bring myself to such pitiful acts when I know the loss is much greater for his family. In some ways it reminds of the book by C.S. Lewis – A Grief Observed.
I do find it curious that such independent men could forge such a relationship as ours.
Even so, it is not, shall I say upstanding character in the truest sense in the manner that I sometimes react. My melancholy compassion or even sometimes, sheer anguish, lies in the mere fact that, The Sven was an Elite Performer and was a better person than most and honestly there are others who would have been better off going into the great sleep – than him. So maybe its anger yet I digress here is a succinct example of how Brutally Honest he was with people.
For example in discussion:
Person 1: Well here is my idea and blah blah blah blah… What do you think?
Sven: You know what i think? I think its fucking stupid. (laughs)
yet another:
Person2: Hey man how are you today?
Sven: Like shit – how are you?
Person 2: no response just keeps walking.
(to me: see exactly as you said they dont even pay attention)
Most people dont have the cajones or they are caught up in their own pathetic, self referenced heads to say anything out of the ordinary, for fear of reprisal or what others might “think” of them.
Some of you know that I wear a Skeleton Head Ring on my right hand. I believe in the ethos: Life The Great Indulgence! I do not go the for the Gothic ‘I want to die” crap nor is it some Rock N Roll Hootchie Coo affect. So why do I wear it? It came from a discussion the Sven and I had years ago. We were talking about Schrodinger’s Cat. The Sven once said the Cat is dead because he destroyed the box.
So one day we were talking about the cat, women, boats and music, mixed in with a little software engineering, and he drew a skeleton face on a napkin and threw it over to me. He said, “It all comes for us.” I folded the napkin up and kept it and had a ring made out of it. Solid Silver. Of course the Silver Smith took some artistic freedoms and added some realism and ferocity. It is beautiful to me. It is a constant reminder that the Great Reaper is after us. It is also a reminder concerning the discussion he and I had that day.
It is also a reminder the feeling of immortality should be crystallized and adored.
Said Ring.
A feeling of immortality was occurring the last day I talked to him.
Sven was sailing around the world and being a true waterman he was prepared. He owned a satellite phone for his sailing trip around the world. I never could stand that damn satellite phone he had and he loved that damn thing for whatever reason. Probably because it provided him total freedom. On numerous occasion I tried to call him and he tried calling me etc. I finally sent him a message via carrier pigeon to just wait and call me when he gets settled in the port of call we had decided to meet. As a note we had planned all of this years earlier to meet around the world whenever Sven bought his boat which in an of itself is a great story. So finally I suppose he was settled and one day…
(Phone Ringing)
Me: Hello?
Sven: Hey man!
Me: I hate that piece of shit phone of your’s where are you?
Sven: I have been hanging out at this cantina all day long and the guy is letting me use his phone to call you. You guys have your tickets?
Me: Not yet.
Sven: Man go get them! It is crazy they have been playing Latin music all day and when I just called you they started playing “Gimme Back My Bullets” its a sign!
Me: Well then it must be so. Yeah I will get them today. So tell me something man how is it?
Sven: Well it took me about 3 months just to realize that I didnt have a fucking schedule. It is so stupid running around like a squirrel.
Me: I hear ya man. So tell me somethin’ ya’ happy?
Sven: Yea man if I would have known how this was going to be I would have done it a long time ago. It really puts things in perspective. The responsiblity is all on you but it places different responsibilities that are more real than the rest of the stuff, ya know?
Me: Yeah man I know its the crap that is what they lead you to believe – the stuff that is all important. I just wanted to know that you are happy.
Sven: Yea man really. I am. Thanks.
Me: You dont have to thank me. Ok man we will see you soon! Go Big!
Sven: Ok man I’ll see you soon.
Never again did I get to tell him how stupid his phone was or that I believed he did destroy the cat in the box.
Yea it looks like what you are thinking. We were laughing.
In the last months Steven experienced life that most dream about and yet are to scared to go after for fear of so called personal failure. Most cling to the fallacy of societies trappings and the “thou shalts” of our existence which most deem rules created by so called social norms. Living outside of those social norms brings great freedom and at the same instance great responsibilities that most are afraid to experience.
He died doing what he loved – free diving in the ocean he so loved.
“You Only Suffer As Long As You Want To
Men Like Us Do Not Let Each Other Drown
We Share The Sweetest Black Bread
That Delicate Grain Of Scorn
No God, No Master, No Master Slave.”
~ Rome- “We who fell in love with the sea (Jérôme Reuter)
“Our life passes like idle chatter.” ~ Karl Maria Willgut
Here is the infamous PC Destruction video:
This was one of the songs he liked off the Fight Club soundtrack. We used to listen to it everyday at Apple.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EOb7lcto0k
And if he was here I believe he would like this song or then again he would tell me it was fucking stupid and laugh.
“With heart and hand I pledge you while I load my gun again, you will never be forgotten or the enemy forgiven, my good comrade.”
~ A.S.L.
As is usual this time of year most think of heading back to school, the coming of autumn and even some are contemplating the winter holidays. I am usually stuck betwixt the mental gymnastics of the proverbial Indian Summer and the Weather Channel fervently watching for the next storm barreling up the Carribean Corridor. True waterman know that one should never take your eye off the ocean or take your gaze off the skyline. The relationship a waterman has with the ocean is an extremely complicated Mars/Venus – Love/Hate – Yin/Yang existence especially for those that would love to see The Kracken, Leviathan or Neptune emerge from the deep. Secretly I believe we are ‘Oceanic misogynist’ as most watermen look at the ocean as a lady and actually dislike her yet at the same time are drawn to Her love and terror.
Yet as much as I truly love this time of the year when most start tweeting – “We will never forget!” – in honor of the 9/11 terrorist attacks my mind wanders to few days before 9/11 and the last time I talked to the waterman and my comrade: Steven Swenson (aka Sven).
Some of you know that I write this dedication every year. It is neither cathartic nor is it pining in squalid sorrow for my lost commrade. I cannot bring myself to such pitiful acts when I know the loss is much greater for his family. In some ways it reminds of the book by C.S. Lewis – A Grief Observed.
I do find it curious that such independent men could forge such a relationship as ours.
Even so, it is not, shall I say upstanding character in the truest sense in the manner that I sometimes react. My melancholy compassion or even sometimes, sheer anguish, lies in the mere fact that, The Sven was an Elite Performer and was a better person than most and honestly there are others who would have been better off going into the great sleep – than him. So maybe its anger yet I digress here is a succinct example of how Brutally Honest he was with people.
For example in discussion:
Person 1: Well here is my idea and blah blah blah blah… What do you think?
Sven: You know what i think? I think its fucking stupid. (laughs)
yet another:
Person2: Hey man how are you today?
Sven: Like shit – how are you?
Person 2: no response just keeps walking.
(to me: see exactly as you said they dont even pay attention)
Most people dont have the cajones or they are caught up in their own pathetic, self referenced heads to say anything out of the ordinary, for fear of reprisal or what others might “think” of them.
Some of you know that I wear a Skeleton Head Ring on my right hand. I believe in the ethos: Life The Great Indulgence! I do not go the for the Gothic ‘I want to die” crap nor is it some Rock N Roll Hootchie Coo affect. So why do I wear it? It came from a discussion the Sven and I had years ago. We were talking about Schrodinger’s Cat. The Sven once said the Cat is dead because he destroyed the box.
So one day we were talking about the cat, women, boats and music, mixed in with a little software engineering, and he drew a skeleton face on a napkin and threw it over to me. He said, “It all comes for us.” I folded the napkin up and kept it and had a ring made out of it. Solid Silver. Of course the Silver Smith took some artistic freedoms and added some realism and ferocity. It is beautiful to me. It is a constant reminder that the Great Reaper is after us. It is also a reminder concerning the discussion he and I had that day.
It is also a reminder the feeling of immortality should be crystallized and adored.
Said Ring.
A feeling of immortality was occurring the last day I talked to him.
Sven was sailing around the world and being a true waterman he was prepared. He owned a satellite phone for his sailing trip around the world. I never could stand that damn satellite phone he had and he loved that damn thing for whatever reason. Probably because it provided him total freedom. On numerous occasion I tried to call him and he tried calling me etc. I finally sent him a message via carrier pigeon to just wait and call me when he gets settled in the port of call we had decided to meet. As a note we had planned all of this years earlier to meet around the world whenever Sven bought his boat which in an of itself is a great story. So finally I suppose he was settled and one day…
(Phone Ringing)
Me: Hello?
Sven: Hey man!
Me: I hate that piece of shit phone of your’s where are you?
Sven: I have been hanging out at this cantina all day long and the guy is letting me use his phone to call you. You guys have your tickets?
Me: Not yet.
Sven: Man go get them! It is crazy they have been playing Latin music all day and when I just called you they started playing “Gimme Back My Bullets” its a sign!
Me: Well then it must be so. Yeah I will get them today. So tell me something man how is it?
Sven: Well it took me about 3 months just to realize that I didnt have a fucking schedule. It is so stupid running around like a squirrel.
Me: I hear ya man. So tell me somethin’ ya’ happy?
Sven: Yea man if I would have known how this was going to be I would have done it a long time ago. It really puts things in perspective. The responsiblity is all on you but it places different responsibilities that are more real than the rest of the stuff, ya know?
Me: Yeah man I know its the crap that is what they lead you to believe – the stuff that is all important. I just wanted to know that you are happy.
Sven: Yea man really. I am. Thanks.
Me: You dont have to thank me. Ok man we will see you soon! Go Big!
Sven: Ok man I’ll see you soon.
Never again did I get to tell him how stupid his phone was or that I believed he did destroy the cat in the box.
Yea it looks like what you are thinking. We were laughing.
In the last months Steven experienced life that most dream about and yet are to scared to go after for fear of so called personal failure. Most cling to the fallacy of societies trappings and the “thou shalts” of our existence which most deem rules created by so called social norms. Living outside of those social norms brings great freedom and at the same instance great responsibilities that most are afraid to experience.
He died doing what he loved – free diving in the ocean he so loved.
“You Only Suffer As Long As You Want To
Men Like Us Do Not Let Each Other Drown
We Share The Sweetest Black Bread
That Delicate Grain Of Scorn
No God, No Master, No Master Slave.”
~ Rome- “We who fell in love with the sea (Jérôme Reuter)
“Our life passes like idle chatter.” ~ Karl Maria Willgut
Here is the infamous PC Destruction video:
This was one of the songs he liked off the Fight Club soundtrack. We used to listen to it everyday at Apple.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EOb7lcto0k
And if he was here I believe he would like this song or then again he would tell me it was fucking stupid and laugh.
